Saturday, October 16, 2010

Tales From The Darkside: The Movie

Captured by a witch with plans to eat him, a little boy tells three scary stories in an attempt to delay his demise. In the stories - grad students unleash a cursed mummy; a hit man is hired to kill an evil cat; a man makes a pact with a demon in exchange for his life, with bizarre and tragic consequences.

As I've said before, a good anthology should have short, compact stories with elegant twist endings. Tales From The Darkside: The Movie (a spin-off from a Creepshow-inspired TV show I vaguely recall watching when I was young) suffers from too much fat but still provides a not unreasonable amount of fun. The first story, despite starring Steve Buscemi, Julianne Moore and Christian Slater, is a total wash, but the other two are good times. The second story aims for bizarre dark comedy and some very over-the-top gore, and the final story is ambitious in the way it pitches itself as a serious, if grotesque, tragedy.

Although it eschews the comic book visuals of the Creepshows, this movie is very much in the same vein; a slightly tongue-in-cheek horror anthology that still aims for some serious scares.

Grade: B-

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